5 ms·

Since you're quoting France, it's worth noting that there, double punctuations (?:!;) are preceded by a half-space (although in practice it's always a full spac

Since you're quoting France, it's worth noting that there, double punctuations (?:!;) are preceded by a half-space (although in practice it's always a full space). Likewise, guillemets are surrounded by spaces (the space inside the guillemets might be a half-space, I'm not entirely sure). So it would be « Hello there ! »

FabHK 4y ago
Easy way to identify francophone writers. They always have a space in front of their colons, exclamation marks, etc.
- groestl 4y ago
  Ahhhhh, thanks for that! I'm German speaking, and I must admit I questioned the intellectual capacity of some people I conversed with, due to that. In German there is even a slur for it: "Deppenleerzeichen" (fool's whitespace). Now that clears things up.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    Just a convention. I used to snigger at the English language convention of capitalising the next sentence in a letter/email after the address - after all, you're still in the same sentence, so why capitalise it. But, it's a conventional thing, so now I do it myself.
  - alpaca128 4y ago
    I never heard about the "Deppen Leerzeichen" in the context of punctuation, but always when German texts split up compound words with a space for no reason.
    - groestl 4y ago
      I think that's the central meaning, but it's used for space before punctuation as well (just a random reference https://www.lass-andere-schreiben.de/blog/kategorie/schreiben/was-sind-eigentlich-deppenleerzeichen https://www.lass-andere-schreiben.de/blog/kategorie/schreibe...)
      - layer8 4y ago
        That's normally called https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenken https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenken.
  - avgcorrection 4y ago
    That says more about you, frankly. Eastern Europeans often drop articles because that’s (apparently) what they do in some Slavic languages. That’s a minor second/third-language quirk, not about an intellectual deficiency (lack of capacity). Of course, some extra whitespace is even more harmless.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      I think most people have these biases in one form or another. It's mostly a matter of your experiences I've found. Rural dialects especially trip me up. I don't know a lot of them personally, and most of the ones I see on TV are talking about.. rural stuff. Also, I think a lot of rural people who go to universities naturally end up toning down their dialects because they tend to be in the minority. So it's kind of rarer to see an academic with a thick southern accent. It will often be less pronounced. On the other hand Eastern European English accents have the opposite effect because most of the Eastern Europeans I've seen speak at length are chess grandmasters and physicists. The only thing we can really do is try to notice these biases in ourselves and ignore them as best we can.
nephanth 4y ago
An unbreakable half-space, to be pedantic (though in this case the pedantry makes sense: you don't want your punctuation mark to end up on the next line)
- glandium 4y ago
  And for extra fun, while the French word for space (espace) is masculine gender (un espace) for most its meanings, in typography, it's feminine (une espace).

FabHK 4y ago

Easy way to identify francophone writers. They always have a space in front of their colons, exclamation marks, etc.

groestl 4y ago
Ahhhhh, thanks for that! I'm German speaking, and I must admit I questioned the intellectual capacity of some people I conversed with, due to that. In German there is even a slur for it: "Deppenleerzeichen" (fool's whitespace). Now that clears things up.
- FabHK 4y ago
  Just a convention. I used to snigger at the English language convention of capitalising the next sentence in a letter/email after the address - after all, you're still in the same sentence, so why capitalise it. But, it's a conventional thing, so now I do it myself.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  I never heard about the "Deppen Leerzeichen" in the context of punctuation, but always when German texts split up compound words with a space for no reason.
  - groestl 4y ago
    I think that's the central meaning, but it's used for space before punctuation as well (just a random reference https://www.lass-andere-schreiben.de/blog/kategorie/schreiben/was-sind-eigentlich-deppenleerzeichen https://www.lass-andere-schreiben.de/blog/kategorie/schreibe...)
    - layer8 4y ago
      That's normally called https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenken https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenken.
- avgcorrection 4y ago
  That says more about you, frankly. Eastern Europeans often drop articles because that’s (apparently) what they do in some Slavic languages. That’s a minor second/third-language quirk, not about an intellectual deficiency (lack of capacity). Of course, some extra whitespace is even more harmless.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    I think most people have these biases in one form or another. It's mostly a matter of your experiences I've found. Rural dialects especially trip me up. I don't know a lot of them personally, and most of the ones I see on TV are talking about.. rural stuff. Also, I think a lot of rural people who go to universities naturally end up toning down their dialects because they tend to be in the minority. So it's kind of rarer to see an academic with a thick southern accent. It will often be less pronounced. On the other hand Eastern European English accents have the opposite effect because most of the Eastern Europeans I've seen speak at length are chess grandmasters and physicists. The only thing we can really do is try to notice these biases in ourselves and ignore them as best we can.

nephanth 4y ago

An unbreakable half-space, to be pedantic (though in this case the pedantry makes sense: you don't want your punctuation mark to end up on the next line)

glandium 4y ago
And for extra fun, while the French word for space (espace) is masculine gender (un espace) for most its meanings, in typography, it's feminine (une espace).